Published: July 22, 2008 11:17 am            

Gas-siphoning, bad breath, on the rise

When I was a kid, we had this neighbor who I will politely refer to as a degenerate juvenile delinquent.

Think Kelly Leak from the original "Bad News Bears" without the home run swing or moral compass.

Anyway, one Saturday, I'm playing in the front yard – I was probably nine or 10 – when a police car pulls up and stops in front of our house. Uh oh, I thought to myself. The officer got out of his patrol car, walked up to me and said, "Are your parents around? I need to talk to one of them."

Suavely, I responded with: "I didn't know it was against the law to use a pop top on a video game, I swear. I didn't think it would work. I only did it once or twice, I swear. Alright, you got me. I did it 10 times. But I make good grades, and..."

The officer interrupted my confession with "Just go get your parents, son."

Petrified, I trudged inside to retrieve my father. Much to my delight, Johnny Law wasn't after me, but rather the aforementioned teenage neighbor, who had cut up our garden hose the night before to siphon gas out of our car for his motorcycle.

Welcome back to the late 1970s.

Apparently, with gas prices skyrocketing, siphoning gas is once again the scourge of our fair cities. Across the nation, police departments are seeing a rise in gas thefts via siphoning.

On that Saturday many years ago, my father explained to me how one siphons gas. From what I recall, you get a hose and put it in a gas tank, then suck on the other end. This somehow causes the gas to come through the hose, into your pilfering gas tank or bucket or whatever.

Gas siphoning has gotten so widespread lately that one Minnesota Sheriff's department has created a special gas siphoning hotline. Law enforcement officials in St. Paul hope the tipline will allow deputies to track the thefts and configure patterns to prevent future thefts and apprehend suspects.

One way for law enforcement to identify gas siphoning suspects is to look for individuals who are on fire.

A brief scan of the nation's newspaper headlines reveals a trend of unsuspecting gas-siphoners setting themselves aflame – like this item from the Gillette (Wyoming) News Record. Apparently, a 17-year-old lit himself on fire at a gas station. Upon investigation, police officers determined that the teen had spilled gas on his pants while siphoning gas, then used a lighter to determine how wet his pants were.

Or police can look for cars ablaze.

This from the Arizona Daily Sun: Fire and police crews were called to a Flagstaff auto recycler on a call of several cars in flames. Firefighters found four cars engulfed at the site. An employee later admitted to siphoning gas from one of the cars, then using a lighter to illuminate the scene.

Rule #1 of gas-siphoning: Don't use a lighter to check for spills.

Rule #2 of gas-siphoning: Make sure it's the gas tank.

A British news outlet reports of another incident where a man was attempting to siphon gas from a camper. Instead of siphoning from the gas tank, though, he siphoned from the sewage tank. Police apprehended the man by following the flies.

Like most things that sound too good to be true, stealing gas has its drawbacks – bad breath, chief among them.

        

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